Eeeepc 1005pe Atheros wireless not working

[eeepclover]

I'm new to linux, but I am trying to learn the goodness that is BackTrack. I have a new Eee PC 1005PE and installed BT4 Final to persist on the SDHC card, but I can't get the wireless to work. I'm thinking I'll wear out the internet if I continue googling, but I appreciate all the wise words on here and other forums. I'm hoping the group here can help with the problem I'm facing now. Please keep in mind I'm new to Linux, so feel free to fact-check anything I say because I may be using the wrong word for something.

ifconfig shows eth0 and lo as active and I can use the wired connection, but the wireless is conspicuously missing.

iwconfig shows both lo and eth0 as "no wireless extensions"

lspci (skipping the boring stuff) shows:

00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Attansic Technology Corp. Atheros AR8132 / L1c Gigabit Ethernet Adapter (rev c0)
02:00.0 Network controller: atheros Communications Inc. Device 002c (rev 01)

And here's where it gets weird:

# modprobe -r ath_pci
FATAL: Module ath_pci not found

#airdriver-ng detect

Found "Madwifi[-ng]" device: (ath_pci)
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Attansic Technology Corp. Atheros AR8132 / L1c Gigabit Ethernet Adapter (rev c0)
02:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. Device 002c (rev 01)

USB devices (generic detection):
Bus 005 Device 002: ID 0b05:1788 ASUSTek Computer, Inc.

So that makes me wonder if "ath_pci" is functional or not.

I've used Synaptic to install ndiswrapper and madwifi. The ndiswrapper GUI accepts the Windows drivers that I've downloaded and I get an error when using "Wireless Network Drivers" to install netathw.inf (same result for netathr.inf and netathwx.inf). That error reads:

 Module could not be loaded.  Error was:
FATAL: Module ndiswrapper not found.
Is the ndiswrapper module installed?

But clicking "OK" lets me see the driver back in the "Wireless Network Drivers" screen along with "Hardware Present: Yes"

So does that mean it worked? I don't think so because the ifconfig and iwconfig still show nothing useful.

What say you, what do I need to do to get this to work? Thanks for all your help, I look forward to providing whatever error or status messages you need to help me troubleshoot this.